Prose : The Duplex

The Duplex

I don’t know my neighbors. They’ve lived here for longer than we have but I’ve never met them. It’s weird, considering that their daughter and I go to the same school. We walk home together… Well, almost, since she walks on the opposite side of the road than me and I don’t think she wants to talk to me. So I’ve never made an effort and just minded my own business, all the time knowing that there was someone literally on the other side of that wall whom I wanted to meet but couldn’t bring myself to.
One night I was lying in my bed, just staring at the ceiling. I don’t remember what I was thinking about, exactly, but it probably was something stupid. I heard someone humming on the other side of that wall and I scooted closer to listen to them. I knew it was that girl whom I’d never really met, but I felt really alone and it was comforting to hear someone else and pretend they were in the room with me.
I’d been to the doctor recently and she told me I have a tumor on my lung, and she said they can’t operate because there is a really big chance I won’t live through it. They said its benign… But there is a good chance it’ll get a lot bigger. They said that cancer spreads like wildfire as well, and if a mutated cell gets into my bloodstream and gets to my heart, I’m as good as dead. It really made me think harder about my life, and how I’ve been taking things for granted. My friends, my parents, my siblings, my life in general. I’m an okay student, I don’t cause too many problems, and I have the best friends in the world. Its really weird how you never think about how precious those things are until something like cancer is introduced into the perfect balance, shattering your hopes, dreams, and possibly your future. Ever since I’d found that out I’ve been getting upset over the smallest things… My boyfriend broke up with me because I was too moody, my friends are trying to keep their distance until my mood swings ‘blow over’, and my family hasn’t been incredibly close ever since. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and we seemed like the “perfect” family. We did everything together, there were no real troublemakers, and everyone was in good health… But at home it was like strangers forced to live together. My parents do not smile at each other any more, nor did they use endearing names to address one another. My brothers share a room but are rarely together, and when they are in at the same time its only to sleep or they seem to be in their own little worlds, light-years away from earth and too far to walk from each other. My sister practically lives in her room, only coming out every so often to get a drink or go to the bathroom… Me? I don’t really know how I act… In order to really honestly see how someone acts you have to observe them, like I’ve watched my family drift apart. I guess I try to start conversations but only cold, stale air replies. I feel like I’m talking to statues sometimes.
So, yeah, I guess I do have it pretty bad with my distant family and my developing cancer… But I try not to complain too much. I keep a journal and mostly write poetry to keep my mind off of my current situation. I hope to maybe get some of my poems published one day… But I have to write some that aren’t so personal first.
My room is right next to the dividing wall between our half of the duplex and our neighbors. I guess that the girl is in the room right next to mine because I hear her sometimes. I hear her sing, hear her music, even hear her fighting with her parents until a door slam silences them. I hear her cry… Even without talking to her I feel close to her for some reason. Sometimes I just want to go over there and comfort her, but I don't know why. Maybe I hope that she feels alone, and hears me sometimes, and wishes the same things I do… But I guess I’ll never know, since the doctors are giving me a few more months until my tumor gets really big and only a couple years after that. Until then I don’t want to develop any relationships because it will just be more people I leave behind when I die. I don’t want to feel like a disappointment… So I’m secretly pushing my friends to abandon me so they won’t miss me when I’m gone. I think I’m doing the right thing…. Right?
Something I do when I’m upset is I hang my arms out of my window… I don’t like sitting outside because people always ask me what I’m going out for, and this way they won’t know. It makes me feel like I’m less of this family, and less of a person. The stars twinkle in the sky like diamonds strewn out, across a sparkling brook of darkness we know as the night sky. The moon seems to be watching me and somewhat sympathizing for my pain as I listen to the sound of the girl next door breathing while she slept, which came through her open window as well. Every once in a while she’d turn over and I would be secretly hoping she’d get up and look outside and see me, then ask me what was the matter but it hasn’t happened once.  I know it’s a stupid thing to wish for… But I feel better knowing that there is a possibility it could happen one day. Maybe.
That night was different though… The stars still shimmered above but it didn’t make me feel better like it normally did. I kept thinking back to the cancer growing inside me and it broke my heart into millions of fragile pieces. I was like glass; I kept breaking over and over again but I knew in my mind I had to stay for those who cared for me so I kept pulling myself back together. No one around me knew how I felt because I was afraid to tell them… I didn’t want them to know how weak I really was. So I kept it to myself and every night, as I layed down, I felt something inside me crumble as I cried myself to sleep. By the morning my pillow would be soaked in tears.
That night as my arms draped out of the window, catching a couple of raindrops that silently fell lightly onto the pavement I began to cry. I really don’t know why since nothing upsetting had happened but just out of nowhere… I began sobbing like a baby. After all of the denial I’d set into my heart I’ve finally realized… My life is bad. No matter how many times I try to convince myself it could be worse I always know, deep in my heart, that I don’t really believe that. It helped for a while, before I had figured out that I didn’t believe a word I told myself anymore and now its just empty wishes my heart makes. A silly dream that I knew wouldn’t come true… And no one knew how I felt.
I stared out at the dampening street, listening to my neighbor’s light breath and to the falling raindrops that cooled my skin blew in delicately through my window onto my face. I heard a light sigh from next door and the springs groaned from the mattress… She was getting up.
From the streetlight I knew that my red eyes and tear-soaked face were visible… I was hoping the she wasn’t coming to the window at first so she wouldn’t see me looking so horrid and then I told myself ‘She’s not coming… She never does,” and I felt better. I sat back on my heels while I kneeled beside my window, arms still slung over the sill. I lowered my eyes to focus on the dark, moist grass and began to take evaluation over all of the things I regret and things I could fix before my fate was decided and the cards were layed out before me. While I thought of these things a tear rolled down my cheek and something warm touched my fingertips. Instead of jerking away I leaned forward to see what it was, while the warm thing wrapped around my hand. An arm was reaching out of the next window, the girl’s window, and her hand held mine. We sat for who knows how long, holding the others hand.
Although I’ve never met her… I felt closer to her than I’d ever felt to anyone in my life.